EXPECTATION OF THE FIRST COMING OF CHRIST. 



87 



wide range of Scripture, we will confine ourselves to the two 

 passages mentioned above, only adding to the 53rd of Isaiah 

 the last three verses of the preceding chapter. Of the 22nd 

 Psalm all the first twenty verses refer to the details of Christ's 

 sufferings, the remainder to the glories resulting therefrom. 

 Every agent taking any part in the sufferings of Christ, from God 

 the Father who permitted them, to the Roman soldiers who 

 nailed Jesus to the Cross, is correctly described in this psalm, 

 and their part assigned. To understand this we must remember 

 that " bulls of Bashan " (verse 12) was a Jewish expression for 

 people in high places who oppress the poor and crush the needy 

 (see Amos iv, 1, and Ezek. xxxix, 18), a true description of 

 the rulers of the Jews, who caused Christ's death. There is a 

 curious change of agency in the 16th verse of the 22nd Psalm. 

 Up to that verse it is clear that both the Sufferer and those who 

 derided Him would be Jews. But the 16th verse reads, " For 

 dogs have compassed me." Now " dogs was the ordinary 

 way in which Jews spoke of Gentiles. Let us see what it was 

 these Gentiles were to do. The psalm continues, " The assembly 

 of evil doers have enclosed Me, they pierced My hands and My 

 feet, I may tell all My bones " (meaning probably that the bones 

 would so ache that it would feel as though they could be counted), 

 " they look and stare upon Me ; they part My garments among 

 them, and upon My vesture do they cast lots." The exact things 

 that the Roman soldiers eventually did. 



Thus agency is the key to the 22nd Psalm, but in the passage in 

 Isaiah it would seem that the author was trying to analyse the 

 progress of thought of those who should contemplate the suffer- 

 ings of Messiah. First they regard them with bewilderment. 

 " Many were astonished at Thee." Then as contemptible, " He 

 was despised and rejected of men ... as one from whom 

 men hide their face He was despised." Then they consider the 

 sufferings to be penal, inflicted by God for the Sufferer's own 

 sins ; " we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted." 

 Then they advance to perceiving that the sufferings are vicarious, 

 undergone for others. " He was wounded for our transgressions, 

 He was bruised for our iniquities " ; and finally they perceive 

 that the sufferings are redemptive, " With His stripes we are 

 healed, the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." It is 

 surely noteworthy that these two prophetic passages are logically 

 planned and orderly thoughts, rather than rhapsodies. Yet 

 the 53rd Isaiah contains nine distinct predictions of the historical 



